Markov Chain for Reuse Strategies of Product Families

A methodology is presented to plan reuse strategies of common modules in a product family by using the concepts of function degradation, reliability, function requirement, cost and life time. Markov chain model is employed to predict function degradation and reliability. A utility model is used to evaluate the preference between used modules and new modules. An example of cascading-requirment product family illustrates the main ideas of our work. The Markov models are used effectively to predict function degradation and reliability. Utility theory is helpful to evaluate the reuse options of common modules.

Product family modeling technology for customized cosmetic packaging design based on basic-element theory

Background:As the market demands change,SMEs(small and medium-sized enterprises)have long faced many design issues,including high costs,lengthy cycles,and insufficient innovation.These issues are especially noticeable in the domain of cosmetic packaging design.Objective:To explore innovative product family modeling methods and configuration design processes to improve the efficiency of enterprise cosmetic packaging design and develop the design for mass customization.Methods:To accomplish this objective,the basic-element theory has been introduced and applied to the design and development system of the product family.Results:By examining the mapping relationships between the demand domain,functional domain,technology domain,and structure domain,four interrelated models have been developed,including the demand model,functional model,technology model,and structure model.Together,these models form the mechanism and methodology of product family modeling,specifically for cosmetic packaging design.Through an analysis of a case study on men’s cosmetic packaging design,the feasibility of the proposed product family modeling technology has been demonstrated in terms of customized cosmetic packaging design,and the design efficiency has been enhanced.Conclusion:The product family modeling technology employs a formalized element as a module configuration design language,permeating throughout the entire development cycle of cosmetic packaging design,thus facilitating a structured and modularized configuration design process for the product family system.The application of the basic-element principle in product family modeling technology contributes to the enrichment of the research field surrounding cosmetic packaging product family configuration design,while also providing valuable methods and references for enterprises aiming to elevate the efficiency of cosmetic packaging design for the mass customization product model.

Study on an Configuration Framework for Product Family

In implementing mass customization, how to respond rapidly to customers’ requirements is a key problem. Configuration design is considered effective in early stage of product design. This paper studies a configuration method based on constraints and fuzzy decision for product family. The configuration method is evolved from constraint based product configuration. It employs fuzzy optimum selection in the reasoning process, which can select similar components when customers’ requirements can not be met precisely. In the configurator, product family is represented with GBOM(Generic Bill Of Material) and ACL(Article Characteristic List). Every node of GBOM has an ACL to list all instances of a component family. Constraints are attached to every node, which involves variable definition and constraints definition. In the reasoning process, constraint satisfaction and fuzzy optimum selection interact to search optimum solution. A prototype is developted to demonstrate how to run the configurator. The paper ends with a discussion of advantages, future work of the configuration method.

MODIFIED GENETIC ALGORITHM APPLIED TO SOLVE PRODUCT FAMILY OPTIMIZATION PROBLEM

The product family design problem solved by evolutionary algorithms is discussed. A successful product family design method should achieve an optimal tradeoff among a set of competing objectives, which involves maximizing commonality across the family of products and optimizing the performances of each product in the family. A 2-level chromosome structured genetic algorithm （2LCGA） is proposed to solve this class of problems and its performance is analyzed in comparing its results with those obtained with other methods. By interpreting the chromosome as a 2-level linear structure, the variable commonality genetic algorithm （GA） is constructed to vary the amount of platform commonality and automatically searches across varying levels of commonality for the platform while trying to resolve the tradeoff between commonality and individual product performance within the product family during optimization process. By incorporating a commonality assessing index to the problem formulation, the 2LCGA optimize the product platform and its corresponding family of products in a single stage, which can yield improvements in the overall performance of the product family compared with two-stage approaches （the first stage involves determining the best settings for the platform variables and values of unique variables are found for each product in the second stage）. The scope of the algorithm is also expanded by introducing a classification mechanism to allow mul- tiple platforms to be considered during product family optimization, offering opportunities for superior overall design by more efficacious tradeoffs between commonality and performance. The effectiveness of 2LCGA is demonstrated through the design of a family of universal electric motors and comparison against previous results.

Study of Mechanical Product Rapid Design Based on Knowledge Engineering

This paper proposes a mechanical product intelligent rapid design approach based on integrated technologies. Adopting knowledge based engineering to reuse and manage product design knowledge, and combining feature modeling and parametric design based on existing CAD/CAE/CAM system and technology of product family modeling and engineering database, the system establishes a product family knowledge base, which mainly including product family case base and rule base. The system also utilizes WEB technology to let customers to individually customize products remotely through internet. And an applicable example is given in the end.

A Case Retrieval Projection Pursuit Model for Configuration Design of a Product Family

The paper studies on case-based reasoning of uncertain product attributes in configuration design of a product family. Interval numbers characterize uncertain product attributes. By interpolating a number of certain values randomly to replace interval numbers and making projection pursuit analysis on source cases and target cases of expanded numbers, we can get a projection value in the optimal projection direction. Based on projection value, we can construct a case retrieval model of projection pursuit that can handle coexisting certain and uncertain product attributes. The application examples of chainsaw configuration design show that case retrieval is highly sensitive to reliable results.

Supporting Product Family Design in a3D CAD/PDM Integrated System

This paper addresses some key issues in supporting product family design in a 3 D CAD/ PDM integrated system and introduces the techniques developed or adopted in building the integrated system. The general architecture of a 3D CAD/PDM integrated system is organized as five tiers. Multi-agent technology is applied with a collaborative design environment. The rule-based product family architecture （ PFA ） and tabular layouts of article characteristics （TLAC） technique are applied to represent the knowledge for product families. They make the knowledge understandable, simplified and can be exchanged among heterogeneous information systems. A transparently concentric integrated mode is put forward to enable the heterogeneous processes to interact and communicate regardless of the language used to construct each process. With the mode, function calling and information exchanging among different processes are carried out via message translation/parse approach. Currently, the integrated system is implemented in the platform of Windows NT and 2000.

Product Family Design Methodology Using Object-Oriented Approach

The serious competition environment of global marke t requests the enterprise to change traditional product development strategy and a dopt new theory in order to meet diverse customer needs while maintaining near m ass production efficiency, which is the main philosophy of mass customization. P roduct family design is research focus at present and also is the core technolog y of DFMC (design for mass customization). Firstly, this paper explores the fund amental issues of product family, such as concepts of modularity, commonality/di versity, product platform and product family architecture etc. We compare the te rminology between product family and object-oriented approach in the next step. Thirdly, this paper puts forwards one product family design methodology based o n product platform and under different phase of product life cycle constrains, f or example, functional, assembly and service etc. At the end section of this pap er, we applied, the object-oriented approach in above mentioned product family design methodology to realize the design process. In one word, this paper propos ed one product family design methodology based on object oriented approach and p roduct life cycle consideration, especially the conjointness of characteristic o f OOA and concepts of product family. The main property of OOA are encapsulation , inherence and polymorphism. Encapsulation can represent the module or building blocks of product family. Inherence can be extended to describe the modularity and commonality, and also be used to construct variant space. Alternative specif ic of product family architecture can be embodied with polymorphism. And fin aly, we give the future work contents. In order to derive the product platform a nd achieve modularity and commonality/diversity, interface management between bu ilding block is necessary. The question is how the OOA can be applied in interfa ce management to get our aim OOA is the basis of many information management sy stem, then the question is how to build one system to manage the information of product family and support mass customization The third question is how to deve lop one computer aided tool to facilitate the application of OOA for product fam ily design, even be used to category of design for mass customization.

Knowledge acquisition method for case-knowledge-based product family design

Knowledge acquisition has always been the bottleneck of artificial intelligence. It is the critical point in product family design. Here a knowledge acquisition method was introduced based on scenario model and repository grid and attribute ordering table technology. This method acquired knowledge through providing product design cases to expert, and recording the means and knowledge used by the expert to describe and resolve problems. It used object to express design entity, used scenario to describe the design process, used Event-Condition-Action（ECA） nile to drive design process, and with the help of repository grid and attribute ordering table technology to acquire design knowledge. It＇ s a good way to capture explicit and implicit knowledge. And its validity is proved with respective examples.

Similarity Analysis-based Component Standardization for Product Family Design

During the product family design, it is necessary to reduce the variety of components and share common components among many products. The major benefits are lessened design efforts and reduced costs. Therefore, this paper presents an approach to standardize components of a product family. Form feature modeling for components is discussed. Based on the similarity analysis, a step by step method to standardize the feature architectures of components is described. The algorithms for standardization are identified as well. A case for standardizing components of an auto-body family is used to demonstrate the validity of this approach.

Optimization of assembly line balancing using genetic algorithm

In a manufacturing industry, mixed model assembly line(MMAL) is preferred in order to meet the variety in product demand. MMAL balancing helps in assembling products with similar characteristics in a random fashion. The objective of this work aims in reducing the number of workstations, work load index between stations and within each station. As manual contribution of workers in final assembly line is more, ergonomics is taken as an additional objective function. Ergonomic risk level of a workstation is evaluated using a parameter called accumulated risk posture(ARP), which is calculated using rapid upper limb assessment(RULA) check sheet. This work is based on the case study of an MMAL problem in Rane(Madras) Ltd.(India), in which a problem based genetic algorithm(GA) has been proposed to minimize the mentioned objectives. The working of the genetic operators such as selection, crossover and mutation has been modified with respect to the addressed MMAL problem. The results show that there is a significant impact over productivity and the process time of the final assembled product, i.e., the rate of production is increased by 39.5% and the assembly time for one particular model is reduced to 13 min from existing 18 min. Also, the space required using the proposed assembly line is only 200 m2 against existing 350 m2. Further, the algorithm helps in reducing workers fatigue(i.e., ergonomic friendly).

Optimal design and applicability of electric power steering system for automotive platform

The ongoing need for better fuel economy and lower exhaust pollution of vehicles has increased the employment of electric power steering(EPS)in automotives.Optimal design of EPS for a product family reduces the development and fabrication costs significantly.In this paper,the TOPSIS method along with the NSGA-Ⅱis employed to find an optimum family of EPS for an automotive platform.A multi-objective optimization problem is defined considering road feel,steering portability,RMS of Ackerman error,and product family penalty function(PFPF)as the conflicting objective functions.The results for the single objective optimization problems and the ones for the multi-objective optimization problem,as well as two suggested trade-off design points are presented,compared and discussed.For the two suggested points,performance at one objective function is deteriorated by about 1%,while the commonality is increased by 20%–40%,which shows the effectiveness of the proposed method in first finding the non-dominated design points and then selecting the trade-off among the obtained points.The results indicate that the obtained trade-off points have superior performance within the product family with maximum number of common parts.

Product Family Hierarchical Associated Design and Its Hierarchical Optimization

After reviewing the literature and methodology-related issues within the field of product family design, a deficiency in the current design and development of product family is pointed out. The concept of hierarchical associated design is proposed in this article, according to the deficiency~ and the methods and models for realizing the notion above are described. A two-dimensional analytical model is constructed based on the composing levels and developing processes of product family. The optimization models to hierarchical associated design problems are grouped into two categories： overall-local and key-subordinate. The algorithms of the models are discussed in this paper